Health, Mental Health, and the Architecture of Value-Based Care in AI

Artificial intelligence is no longer confined to research labs or technical infrastructure—it is embedded in classrooms, creative practice, healthcare systems, communication platforms, and planetary-scale infrastructures. As AI systems move from experimental tools to everyday companions, decision-makers, and mediators of social life, the question is no longer whether AI will shape our future, but how—and by whom.

At the Design Lab, we approach AI not simply as an algorithmic achievement, but as a fundamentally human-centered design challenge. Intelligent systems must be technically robust, yet responsive to lived experience; powerful at scale, yet grounded in context; innovative, yet attentive to equity and responsibility. Across seven sessions, Design@Large in Spring 2026 brings together leading voices from research, industry, education, law, health, and the arts to explore how AI is designed, deployed, governed, and experienced in real-world settings. From generative AI in education and music to embodied intelligence in XR, from disability justice and communication to sustainable computing and Indigenous data sovereignty, and from personal AI companions to value-based care in health systems, the series examines AI where it meets people, institutions, and infrastructures.

Rather than treating AI as a purely technical system, we frame it as a site of negotiation among human values, institutional incentives, cultural norms, and material conditions. Each session pairs scholars, practitioners, and industry leaders to interrogate how design decisions shape agency, creativity, trust, access, and care at scale.

Design@Large is open to the broader public and livestreamed online, while also serving as a core seminar for over 100 undergraduate and graduate students at UC San Diego. Together, we ask: What does it mean to design AI responsibly? How do we ensure that intelligent systems amplify human capability without reproducing harm? And how can design guide AI toward more just, inclusive, and sustainable futures?

AI is increasingly embedded in clinical and mental health systems, shaping how care is delivered, measured, and scaled. This session examines how AI participates in the architecture of value-based care—where outcomes, efficiency, equity, and accountability are intertwined. Bringing together computational mental health research, clinical AI deployment, women’s health innovation, and health systems expertise, the discussion explores how design decisions influence what counts as “value” in care and how AI reshapes relationships among patients, clinicians, and institutions.

Peter Westlake is the founder of MindNumbers, a San Diego-based digital health company building passive sensing and algorithmic tools for serious mental illness — tracking sleep, activity, mood, and routine to deliver personalized insights for people living with bipolar disorder and their care teams. His path to mental health technology runs through two decades of diagnostics leadership: he helped drive FDA clearance of a quantitative point-of-care platform at ProciseDx (acquired by Biosynex), and held senior roles at Prometheus Laboratories here in San Diego. That arc — from validated diagnostics to scalable digital tools — informs how he thinks about how to provide decision useful information in clinical settings: what gets measured, how it gets measured, and whether the architecture of AI-driven care serves patients. Peter serves on the Board of the International Bipolar Foundation and holds a degree in economics from the University of Cambridge.

Munmun De Choudhury is J. Z. Liang Professor at the School of Interactive Computing and Co-Lead of Patient-Centered Care Delivery at the Pediatric Technology Center in Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. De Choudhury is known for her contributions to computational social science, human-computer interaction, and digital mental health. Through fostering interdisciplinary collaborations, Dr. De Choudhury and her collaborators have contributed significantly to advancing the development of computational techniques for early detection and intervention in mental health, as well as in unpacking how social media use impacts mental well-being. De Choudhury's contributions have been recognized through awards like the 2023 SIGCHI Societal Impact Award, the 2023 ICWSM and the 2022 Web Science Trust Test-of-Time Awards, and the 2021 ACM-W Rising Star Award. In 2024, she was inducted into the SIGCHI Academy. Beyond her academic contributions, Dr. De Choudhury is a persistent contributor to policy-framing and advocacy initiatives, and sought for expert advice to governments and media. Notably, Dr. De Choudhury was a contributor to the Office of U.S. Surgeon General’s 2023 Advisory on The Healing Effects of Social Connection. Recently, she served as a member of the Technical Advisory Group of the Commission for Social Connection at the World Health Organization.

Jake Sunshine is a Research Scientist at Google and Associate Professor at the University of Washington, with appointments in the Schools of Medicine and Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering. His research is focused on technology-based translational research, at the intersection of clinical medicine, computer science and public health. His work involves finding ways to use smart devices for critical health sensing to help lessen the burden of public health challenges, particularly related to unwitnessed, time-sensitive emergencies such as cardiac arrest. His research has been funded by NIH, NSF, BARDA, private foundations and industry. His research has been published in Nature, Science Translational Medicine, Circulation, Health Affairs and npj Digital Medicine and covered by the Washington Post, STAT, NPR, Scientific American, Wired magazine and others. His essays on health and technology have been published in local and national media, including Slate and the New York Times. Prior to Google he was the Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Sound Life Sciences, a Seattle-based health sensing startup acquired by Google in 2022.

Kavya Reddy, PhD, BCMAS is a neuroscientist focused on evidence-based digital health innovation at the intersection of biology, emerging technologies, and women’s health. She brings over a decade of research experience in cell biology and neurobiology, including postdoctoral work at Rutgers University and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, where her research explored neurodevelopment, Alzheimer’s-related signaling pathways, and the effects of maternal infections on fetal brain development. Dr. Reddy currently serves as Chief Scientist at Hermony, where she is helping develop a digital health platform focused on supporting women during the menopausal transition. Her role centers on evidence-based product development, translating insights from menopause research and patient-reported experiences into scientifically grounded tools designed to better support women’s health. She has also contributed her biology domain expertise to OpenAI’s Deep Research initiative, collaborating with fellow scientists to develop and evaluate research questions and training datasets in biology. Dr. Reddy is passionate about advancing rigorous, patient-centered innovation in women’s health and exploring how emerging technologies can strengthen connections between lived health experiences, scientific research, and clinical care.

How to get to the Design and Innovation Building on the UC San Diego campus

Click here for information about transportation options to get to the Design and Innovation Building.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher UC San Diego Design Lab